[Her stifled gasp - cut off before it can become a fully-formed sound but the beginnings of it picked up by his fine-honed hearing all the same - the careful silence that follows-- these are things that quite clearly telegraph her shock, perhaps even horror at what she sees, and in some strange and perverse way, it makes him smile. He knows what he is-- something monstrous, an artificially created thing of the deep Below, a beast of that facility buried so far down at the city's rotten core that no natural light or human softness can ever penetrate. He's something twisted, an abomination, a thing that should never have been, and yet here he stands all the same, just one of Her many creations.
One of the more successful ones-- there were plenty who came before his series who were not so lucky, warped and twisted into hulking shapes that barely resemble the human forms they had once taken. Those kidnapped children of the Underground, forced into a chain of twisted experiments that ended with them becoming nothing but canon fodder for later generations. For the newer models, specifically tweaked and twisted from before the moment they began to grow in order to house the inimical presence that lurks inside the Spine.
And so, his smile is a cold and cutting thing, concealed from her as he remains turned away, his back and the savage signifier of all that he is taking up - no doubt, he thinks - the entirety of her focus. And perhaps it's strange that he should bear so terrible a scar when every wound since heals so perfectly as to leave him entirely unmarked and unmarred, but he supposes that this, too, as with all things, is part of Mother's design. Something rough and vicious and raw on an otherwise beautiful body-- it's like the sharp, expensive suits he wears even when thrown into the most brutal acts of violence. Poetry in savagery-- Mother's aesthetic.
Still, when her question comes it's accompanied by the vaguest sense of surprise in him, unaccustomed to doctors who ask permission rather than handling him like the object he believes himself to be. Touching him, it's no different to touching a gun or a sword and holds no deeper significance. And so there's a fractional delay before he nods his acquiescence.]
Yes. Go ahead.
[The smooth rise and fall of bladed shoulders before he continues.]
And do you mean, does it hurt? If so, then yes. It causes a constant ache that never really goes away.
[Just the backdrop to his existence, something that has always been a part of him and as such, he doesn't know how it feels to be without it. And on a deeper level than the physical-- well. The collar doesn't bother him. It's a cruel reminder of what he is, yes, but also a point of pride for him. As long as we wear these collars, we're dogs, he's said it before, would say it again-- he knows to whom he belongs, as any loyal hound should, the collar an eternal reminder.]
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One of the more successful ones-- there were plenty who came before his series who were not so lucky, warped and twisted into hulking shapes that barely resemble the human forms they had once taken. Those kidnapped children of the Underground, forced into a chain of twisted experiments that ended with them becoming nothing but canon fodder for later generations. For the newer models, specifically tweaked and twisted from before the moment they began to grow in order to house the inimical presence that lurks inside the Spine.
And so, his smile is a cold and cutting thing, concealed from her as he remains turned away, his back and the savage signifier of all that he is taking up - no doubt, he thinks - the entirety of her focus. And perhaps it's strange that he should bear so terrible a scar when every wound since heals so perfectly as to leave him entirely unmarked and unmarred, but he supposes that this, too, as with all things, is part of Mother's design. Something rough and vicious and raw on an otherwise beautiful body-- it's like the sharp, expensive suits he wears even when thrown into the most brutal acts of violence. Poetry in savagery-- Mother's aesthetic.
Still, when her question comes it's accompanied by the vaguest sense of surprise in him, unaccustomed to doctors who ask permission rather than handling him like the object he believes himself to be. Touching him, it's no different to touching a gun or a sword and holds no deeper significance. And so there's a fractional delay before he nods his acquiescence.]
Yes. Go ahead.
[The smooth rise and fall of bladed shoulders before he continues.]
And do you mean, does it hurt? If so, then yes. It causes a constant ache that never really goes away.
[Just the backdrop to his existence, something that has always been a part of him and as such, he doesn't know how it feels to be without it. And on a deeper level than the physical-- well. The collar doesn't bother him. It's a cruel reminder of what he is, yes, but also a point of pride for him. As long as we wear these collars, we're dogs, he's said it before, would say it again-- he knows to whom he belongs, as any loyal hound should, the collar an eternal reminder.]